But I can still do a Windows install in less than five minutes
All I have to do is just hit next, next, next disable screensaver, check service install, next, reboot, attach to project

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It kept insta-exiting on auto-start, so after rebooting I had to start manually each time. It turns out the /a option[1] was the cause of that. I had to edit the registry and remove that part. Now it starts automatically on login. Phew...

[1] it means:

Code:

/a, --autostart BOINC Manager was started by the operating system automatically

vinska, can you send some Linux mojo in my way? I've had pretty bad luck with my linux installs.

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My work server runs Debian Server and the command line BOINC client/daemon. Can't remember how I set it up, but "boinccmd --help" should give you the syntax. That should squeeze out every last bit of performance.

It will automatically start on boot, even if You do not log in. The boinc manager icon should appear in the launcher drop-down menu, too.

[1] Disclaimer: I did not use this method and cannot attest for it. I used a much more tedious and complicated method. All due to my very strict and special filesystem hierarchy & layout. But should not concern You even the slightest.

yeah, I've done that but after a few days everything stops working for some reason: system all locked up, I do a hard reset and Ubuntu never loads again
Is there a lightweight barebones linux distro out there? Maybe an special version of Ubuntu without all the preinstalled programs or something?
edit: choosed Lubuntu

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That sure is odd. I am really curious now and would love to see Your kernel logs of the time it failed.
I don't trust Lubuntu for high-end machines much, as all that focus to make it lightweight and to run well on old machines might have a negative impact on high-end ones.
I decided to go with Linux Mint for my crunchers. It sure works well. Yeah, it's one of the more bloated distros. But even the most bloated linux distros leave a smaller footprint than, for example, a barebones installation of Win7.
But, for it to hang and then refuse to load again... that is just weird. Say, did You gave it separate partition, or did You use some Wubi shit and whatnot? As that would seem like some major filesystem issues. Which is Wubi is known for, due to being quite broken at the moment.

Isn't 7.0.27 still the latest BOINC version in USC? I still use 12.04 LTS on most of my *nix machines so I don't know if that's why.

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Yes, on 12.04 to 13.04 (inclusive), 7.0.27 is still the latest version on the repo. But 7.0.65 is also available in the repo with backports enabled. The pre-release / alpha version of ubuntu (13.10) has 7.1.21 only.

After a few days when I check up on my crunchers in the night after work I would find the linux cruncher locked up with only the wallpaper visible with no launch pad or "top status bar" (dunno how it's called) and the mouse frozen up.

The first time it happened I thought it was because I installed it on a USB stick but the last two times have been installed on a hard disk. The latest was about two weeks ago when someone mentioned that running boinc under linux x64 gives about a 15% increase in ppd.

Okay so, I slapped my Bulldozer's cooler into that new cruncher (as the stock AMD Athlon 64 X2 cooler is just a slab of aluminum w/ a fan) and we brought it over to my university / where my dad works and hooked it up. It's now crunching full time.
I already got some points from it during the testing phase + it is a good way to ramp up run time for CEP2. As with its short queue, it runs CEP2 all the time. Oh boy can't wait for its badge lvling up!